Unwed Mothers & Giveaway Bastards: Surrendering the 70s
It wasn't fashionable to be unmarried and pregnant in 1971. A "baby bump" was something to be hidden like an oozing pimple slathered with Clearasil. Unwed mothers were "loose" - wanton women best hidden in special "homes for the unwed mothers". It was probably a row home away from Leper Island.
Rose, 19 years old, didn't think about it much, not that day. It was late spring and she was walking down Park Avenue in New York City. About 10 weeks into her pregnancy, she wore a blue belted shirt dress and black high heels. Her chestnut hair was swept into a chignon, her bangs nearly brushing her eyes. Well-read and under-educated, she imagined her life in literature – stories ending with tragic women and flawed men. Sister Carrie, Madame Bovary and Blanche Dubois were her companions.
In 1971, America's culture seemed to be changing. The Viet Nam War continued while "flower-power" had withered into what was left of memory. The first Earth Day happened a year before. Everyone who planned to "turn on and tune in" with Timothy Leary was becoming ordinary. Some had gotten locked up - doing hard time for selling marijuana on the college campus in New York State. Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book was no longer taken literally. Kent University was becoming a sidebar in history. Protests against the Viet Nam War continued, but so did draft deferments and graduate school admissions. Woodstock, a mud-sliding rock n roll festival back in 1969, spawned some great musicians but not much social awareness. Man had walked on the moon a couple of years earlier and Watergate was still in the making. There wasn’t a hint of gay marriage, but gay rights had come on the scene and into the fray.
But getting pregnant without getting married - first – was the leprosy of the day but worse than a disease. Babies born to unwed mothers were still "bastards".
But getting pregnant without getting married - first – was the leprosy of the day but worse than a disease. Babies born to unwed mothers were still "bastards".
Depending on the mother’s social status, it was expected that the bastards would be given up for adoption like unwanted puppies, "mistakes" to be forgotten, never to be mentioned again, like fender benders and bad dates. It was one of the last taboos.
That day in April, Rose was a delusional version of Holly Golightly in New York City. Holly wasn't pregnant and he - that would be Edward - wasn't George Peppard. But those were just details Rose embellished with her own imaginings. Edward would be meeting her soon; maybe he'd change his mind about the plans that day or hold her hand. But this wasn't "Breakfast at Tiffany's" - it was Rose's drama and Edward was the star.
Rose was going to an upper-echelon abortion center, one of the first of its type, ensconced in the amenities of a spa, heralding the legalization of abortion in New York State. For five-hundred dollars, a pregnancy could end - no waiting for the laws to change anywhere else. Roe v. Wade hadn't even been decided by the US Supreme Court. Here, in New York City, a crowded abortion center welcomed women from nearby states and around the corner.
Rose didn't live in New York City - Edward did. She'd gotten up at dawn and almost missed the Greyhound bus from upstate New York. Park Avenue was crowded on that sunlit spring day. A family of ducks was within view across from a pond. Small, trim dogs, groomed and leashed, were emerging from the neighboring buildings, prancing alongside their walkers. Central Park's trees were budding and the footpaths smelled like freshly cut grass. Horse-drawn carriages took leisurely rides around the park, while couples walked hand-in-hand, some stopping to sit on the rocks. She had selected the most elegant clinic, not inadvertently.
She loved New York City - there were the shows, the crowds, the excitement, the anything-could-happen feeling, from Times Square to Fifth Avenue. It reminded her of when she was a little girl, hand –in-hand with her parents on the way to Radio City Music Hall. Today, though, her thoughts were consumed with Edward, Edward Williams, a newspaper reporter with an upstate NY beat and all the news that was fit to print. He was brilliant, tall and smitten with Rose, wrapping her dreams in his arms. She was his "vixen", a "great broad". He actually talked like that, using archaic language that brought their romance across the centuries in her heart. He was the Bard of newspaper reporters, a master fact-weaver. He eloquently turned the most mundane event into a literary piece, never without a cigarette dangling. No matter how drunk or tired, he never missed a deadline.
The 1960s were ending when they met - Rose was eighteen, gorgeous and smart. Edward was 34, at the top of his game. Accidentally voluptuous, Rose had curls that turned heads and so-called “bedroom eyes”. She was meandering through life without her own identity. A runaway flower child, she'd dropped out of school and waitressing was the only job that paid enough to cover her rent. Five nights a week, she circled the tables at the Gallery, a restaurant in view of the capital, taking orders and hoping her tips would be enough.
That day in April, Rose was a delusional version of Holly Golightly in New York City. Holly wasn't pregnant and he - that would be Edward - wasn't George Peppard. But those were just details Rose embellished with her own imaginings. Edward would be meeting her soon; maybe he'd change his mind about the plans that day or hold her hand. But this wasn't "Breakfast at Tiffany's" - it was Rose's drama and Edward was the star.
Rose was going to an upper-echelon abortion center, one of the first of its type, ensconced in the amenities of a spa, heralding the legalization of abortion in New York State. For five-hundred dollars, a pregnancy could end - no waiting for the laws to change anywhere else. Roe v. Wade hadn't even been decided by the US Supreme Court. Here, in New York City, a crowded abortion center welcomed women from nearby states and around the corner.
Rose didn't live in New York City - Edward did. She'd gotten up at dawn and almost missed the Greyhound bus from upstate New York. Park Avenue was crowded on that sunlit spring day. A family of ducks was within view across from a pond. Small, trim dogs, groomed and leashed, were emerging from the neighboring buildings, prancing alongside their walkers. Central Park's trees were budding and the footpaths smelled like freshly cut grass. Horse-drawn carriages took leisurely rides around the park, while couples walked hand-in-hand, some stopping to sit on the rocks. She had selected the most elegant clinic, not inadvertently.
She loved New York City - there were the shows, the crowds, the excitement, the anything-could-happen feeling, from Times Square to Fifth Avenue. It reminded her of when she was a little girl, hand –in-hand with her parents on the way to Radio City Music Hall. Today, though, her thoughts were consumed with Edward, Edward Williams, a newspaper reporter with an upstate NY beat and all the news that was fit to print. He was brilliant, tall and smitten with Rose, wrapping her dreams in his arms. She was his "vixen", a "great broad". He actually talked like that, using archaic language that brought their romance across the centuries in her heart. He was the Bard of newspaper reporters, a master fact-weaver. He eloquently turned the most mundane event into a literary piece, never without a cigarette dangling. No matter how drunk or tired, he never missed a deadline.
The 1960s were ending when they met - Rose was eighteen, gorgeous and smart. Edward was 34, at the top of his game. Accidentally voluptuous, Rose had curls that turned heads and so-called “bedroom eyes”. She was meandering through life without her own identity. A runaway flower child, she'd dropped out of school and waitressing was the only job that paid enough to cover her rent. Five nights a week, she circled the tables at the Gallery, a restaurant in view of the capital, taking orders and hoping her tips would be enough.
Edward came into the restaurant for dinner on weekdays with his colleagues, most of whom ignored her and gave their orders. But Edward talked to her and asked her opinions - she felt important. Tall and gaunt, he had auburn brown hair, and bespectacled intense blue eyes - he'd be a geek post-millennium, if he’d lived that long. He was also a reporter from a famous newspaper and didn’t seem to realize his celebrity. Edward was oddly humble, she thought, or peculiarly unaware of his status. He was taking an interest in her, a waitress. He was a somebody and she felt like a somebody when they were together. Peggy Lee recorded “Is That All There Is?” that year and it became musak in the restaurant, playing again and once more as fifty-something patrons sang along. Rose knew that wouldn’t happen to her. Edward went to an Ivy League school in New York City on a full scholarship. The line was blurring between who he was and who she became when he was around.
What started out as flirting with the waitress shifted into long conversations that continued until dawn, long after her shift ended. He introduced her to good bourbon and better cognac but rarely to his friends. Simon and Garfunkel were still strumming together and “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” became “their” song. Edward and Rose played the juke-box and often danced just before the bar closed. He once gave her twenty dollars for Valentine’s Day and she bought herself a gold claddagh ring, pretending it was a wedding band. They went out to dinner a few times, but usually they sat in her room. On most weeknights, he’d arrive after work to booze and whine some more. “You’re a great broad, Rose,” he’d tell her.
For months, Rose listened to his drunken eulogies; she comforted him when his Da passed - and then his mother. He wailed in pain at their passing, even as they had become strangers across the Brooklyn Bridge. (His father drank himself to death.) All the while, Edward helped her discover the voice in her writing. He read her stories and letters and poems and told her to go back to school. Edward seemed to see himself as Pygmalion, carving her out of his imagination and her insecurities. A pedagogue and mentor, he was creating the most literate cocktail waitress in town with gifts of great literature, "assignments" of reading material, and lectures in bed. She was enchanted and flattered and isolated with words and knowledge she could only share with him in their narrow world. It was as if he felt getting into her bed a few nights a week was recompense for an “education”.
But then he would go home to New York City on the weekends and she would spend lonely hours preparing for "class" when he returned. She would study James Joyce and read Molly's soliloquy in Ulysses again and again. Yes, yes, yes - she would practice, too.
Edward had at least one flaw - he was married and their bi-city romance had become inconvenient. He wasn't about to "go out for a pack of cigarettes and never turn back" as he said to her one night. He asked her, as if actually looking for an answer, if he should just tell his wife everything and marry her. No, that wasn’t going to happen. Rose was pregnant and something had to be done about it.
Spring daffodils and couples holding hands drew Rose to the park that morning in New York City. But she would be visiting the women's center; an elegant pavilion with welcoming windows and an awning that made it appear to be an exclusive hotel. She would have an abortion.
Edward met her at the door. Rose was a good foot shorter than he was and she tilted her head upwards, brushing a loose hair away from her chignon and asked, "Aren't you coming in with me?"
"No," Edward answered, casting a glance around nervously, as if someone in a city of 8 million would somehow pause to recognize him. "You know I can't. I can't be seen here. But here's the money. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
They had talked about this over the past few weeks and he'd listened to her cry and question what to do. She wasn't sure about staying pregnant, only certain that staying pregnant would change everything. Her family didn’t see her often and told her the abortion law was written "for girls like you". It was the end of an era when "unwed mothers" went away to have their babies "out of wedlock". Pregnancy outside of marriage was only good for shaming.
Before he left, Edward counted out five hundred dollars zippered into trench coat- a ridiculous stealth move - and handed it to Rose. He’d call her later. Outside of the twenty dollars she spent on the pretend wedding band, it was the only money he’d ever given her. She felt guilty taking it but didn’t have enough to pay for this, she told him.
After he left, Rose was startled out of a daydream, thinking about Edward, still wondering what to do, even though he’d given her the money and it was assumed she’d have an abortion. There were comfortable couches in the lobby, but the room had an antiseptic smell, like used alcohol swabs.
Rose was directed to go upstairs to wait her turn. The elevator opened and a grimacing woman about 25 years old filled the space, shrieking, "Here's comes another one!" Looking very pregnant and exhausted, she was strapped in a wheelchair. An unchosen life was ending and "another one" was a labor pain. She glanced at Rose and turned away.
Rose guessed the screaming woman was one of the "unwed mothers". It was a saline birth, not a time to pass out cigars or baby announcements. Someone said the woman wasn’t married and 24 weeks pregnant; she struggled from the wheelchair to the gurney, barely draped in a crisp white sheet. Her hair was dripping from the sweat of labor - hours of waiting to end her pregnancy. The orderly wheeled her down the hall into the delivery room.
But for the women in the next room, finished with admissions, the wait had just begun. Unlike the warm lobby, the walls were dingy and gray under dim fluorescent lighting. The staff sat behind a glass-enclosed office, handing out forms and instructions. The abortion didn’t take long, they said, but it was crowded today.
Rose found a seat among the others and listened to their conversations - to pass the time. None of them were “too far along”, meaning they were less than three months pregnant. Rose started chatting nervously about what a beautiful day it was, as if they had all come to New York City for a show at Radio City Music Hall.
The women's center's elite setting helped it fit into Roses' story of who she was, the tragic woman in place of an identify. But here was pain, blood, and tears. Sobs of women who didn’t want to be there were muffled but echoing.
The woman in the elevator - pregnant with death, laughing - haunted Rose Whatever was going to come out of that woman's body at the end of the hall would look like a human baby. It was too easy to judge and think that woman had no feelings about screaming, panting, delivering and going home empty-handed.
No wonder she laughed with her eyes downward, avoiding the agony with bad jokes. Like Rose, she was unwed - told that she deserved to go through this pain.
The rest of the women sat in the waiting room, less pregnant, but many of them weren't there out of choice, at least not their own.
Individually, they would each soon learn about vacuums and aspirators and be counseled about their choice. "It's the best thing you can do at your age," the aide reminded her. Charts and diagrams and releases would be handed out. "It's just for your medical history," the staff said.
One woman brought her youngest child and her older sister with her. She cried that her husband "didn't want any more kids," and there wasn't any choice.
Another young girl about 14 years old sat in silence, looking uncertain about whether she was in a detention hall or an abortion clinic. Her parents didn't know she was there and she was afraid they'd find out. Her boyfriend had "knocked her up" and they had been "so careful".
Rose and Edward hadn't been so careful - failures in "coitus interruptus".
Some of the womem felt scared, afraid - but believed they deserved whatever misery they would feel. There would be no sympathy and no grieving. They were relinquishing some thing they should't have had - like a wart or a leg abcessed by a staph germ.
Rose heard her name called - it was finally her turn. The nurse led her around the corner to a room gleaming with silver instruments. Rose was about to learn about abortion - a "simple vacuum aspiration”, the nurse explained. “There might be a little pressure, a little bleeding afterwards.”
Sitting on the table, watching the stirrups and breathing in the antiseptic scent of the small. operating room, Rose was half-listening, looking around. Only one large lamp was pointed toward the end of the table. A stool was pushed up to the stirrups.
The nurse was still talking. It sounded like a dental extraction. "You might feel a pinch," the nurse cautioned when she left the room. "Please get undressed and put on the gown. The doctor will be in shortly."
The blue gown was folded neatly in a plastic bag, sanitized and ready-to-wear.
Rose was left alone with her thoughts. She didn't think being unwed meant she should have an abortion. And she didn't like society - or her relatives - telling her what to do.
"What happened to the girl who was in this room?" the nurse asked the receptionist. "I left her there about fifteen minutes ago and told her to get the gown on."
“Next”, she called out to the reception area.
Rose was gone - walking down Park Avenue, hailing a cab. There was a play on Broadway she wanted to see before the last bus left for upstate New York. She might not get to New York City again before she gave the baby away. She'd brought the copy of "Dubliners" that Edward gave her to read on the way home. Maybe she'd tell Edward that she finally finished the book.
###
Post-mortem: Rose hid her pregnancy so well that Edward accused her of lying about ever being pregnant the week she delivered. He never saw his daughter. He passed Rose on the street and walked by without a word. Rose didn’t know how to be an unwed mother and surrendered her baby about four months after she was born. She wept hysterically when she signed her baby away and tossed the crib out the same night, breaking it into pieces and throwing it down three flights of stairs. She broke out a bottle of bourbon and sobbed for hours. It was like a funeral without a body, sending her tiny baby into the world to be raised by “better” people, a couple who “deserved” a baby. Rose is still waiting to remember it was a mistake. Edward didn’t remember to quit smoking and died of lung cancer about a dozen years later. They never saw each other again.
What started out as flirting with the waitress shifted into long conversations that continued until dawn, long after her shift ended. He introduced her to good bourbon and better cognac but rarely to his friends. Simon and Garfunkel were still strumming together and “Bridge Over Troubled Waters” became “their” song. Edward and Rose played the juke-box and often danced just before the bar closed. He once gave her twenty dollars for Valentine’s Day and she bought herself a gold claddagh ring, pretending it was a wedding band. They went out to dinner a few times, but usually they sat in her room. On most weeknights, he’d arrive after work to booze and whine some more. “You’re a great broad, Rose,” he’d tell her.
For months, Rose listened to his drunken eulogies; she comforted him when his Da passed - and then his mother. He wailed in pain at their passing, even as they had become strangers across the Brooklyn Bridge. (His father drank himself to death.) All the while, Edward helped her discover the voice in her writing. He read her stories and letters and poems and told her to go back to school. Edward seemed to see himself as Pygmalion, carving her out of his imagination and her insecurities. A pedagogue and mentor, he was creating the most literate cocktail waitress in town with gifts of great literature, "assignments" of reading material, and lectures in bed. She was enchanted and flattered and isolated with words and knowledge she could only share with him in their narrow world. It was as if he felt getting into her bed a few nights a week was recompense for an “education”.
But then he would go home to New York City on the weekends and she would spend lonely hours preparing for "class" when he returned. She would study James Joyce and read Molly's soliloquy in Ulysses again and again. Yes, yes, yes - she would practice, too.
Edward had at least one flaw - he was married and their bi-city romance had become inconvenient. He wasn't about to "go out for a pack of cigarettes and never turn back" as he said to her one night. He asked her, as if actually looking for an answer, if he should just tell his wife everything and marry her. No, that wasn’t going to happen. Rose was pregnant and something had to be done about it.
Spring daffodils and couples holding hands drew Rose to the park that morning in New York City. But she would be visiting the women's center; an elegant pavilion with welcoming windows and an awning that made it appear to be an exclusive hotel. She would have an abortion.
Edward met her at the door. Rose was a good foot shorter than he was and she tilted her head upwards, brushing a loose hair away from her chignon and asked, "Aren't you coming in with me?"
"No," Edward answered, casting a glance around nervously, as if someone in a city of 8 million would somehow pause to recognize him. "You know I can't. I can't be seen here. But here's the money. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
They had talked about this over the past few weeks and he'd listened to her cry and question what to do. She wasn't sure about staying pregnant, only certain that staying pregnant would change everything. Her family didn’t see her often and told her the abortion law was written "for girls like you". It was the end of an era when "unwed mothers" went away to have their babies "out of wedlock". Pregnancy outside of marriage was only good for shaming.
Before he left, Edward counted out five hundred dollars zippered into trench coat- a ridiculous stealth move - and handed it to Rose. He’d call her later. Outside of the twenty dollars she spent on the pretend wedding band, it was the only money he’d ever given her. She felt guilty taking it but didn’t have enough to pay for this, she told him.
After he left, Rose was startled out of a daydream, thinking about Edward, still wondering what to do, even though he’d given her the money and it was assumed she’d have an abortion. There were comfortable couches in the lobby, but the room had an antiseptic smell, like used alcohol swabs.
Rose was directed to go upstairs to wait her turn. The elevator opened and a grimacing woman about 25 years old filled the space, shrieking, "Here's comes another one!" Looking very pregnant and exhausted, she was strapped in a wheelchair. An unchosen life was ending and "another one" was a labor pain. She glanced at Rose and turned away.
Rose guessed the screaming woman was one of the "unwed mothers". It was a saline birth, not a time to pass out cigars or baby announcements. Someone said the woman wasn’t married and 24 weeks pregnant; she struggled from the wheelchair to the gurney, barely draped in a crisp white sheet. Her hair was dripping from the sweat of labor - hours of waiting to end her pregnancy. The orderly wheeled her down the hall into the delivery room.
But for the women in the next room, finished with admissions, the wait had just begun. Unlike the warm lobby, the walls were dingy and gray under dim fluorescent lighting. The staff sat behind a glass-enclosed office, handing out forms and instructions. The abortion didn’t take long, they said, but it was crowded today.
Rose found a seat among the others and listened to their conversations - to pass the time. None of them were “too far along”, meaning they were less than three months pregnant. Rose started chatting nervously about what a beautiful day it was, as if they had all come to New York City for a show at Radio City Music Hall.
The women's center's elite setting helped it fit into Roses' story of who she was, the tragic woman in place of an identify. But here was pain, blood, and tears. Sobs of women who didn’t want to be there were muffled but echoing.
The woman in the elevator - pregnant with death, laughing - haunted Rose Whatever was going to come out of that woman's body at the end of the hall would look like a human baby. It was too easy to judge and think that woman had no feelings about screaming, panting, delivering and going home empty-handed.
No wonder she laughed with her eyes downward, avoiding the agony with bad jokes. Like Rose, she was unwed - told that she deserved to go through this pain.
The rest of the women sat in the waiting room, less pregnant, but many of them weren't there out of choice, at least not their own.
Individually, they would each soon learn about vacuums and aspirators and be counseled about their choice. "It's the best thing you can do at your age," the aide reminded her. Charts and diagrams and releases would be handed out. "It's just for your medical history," the staff said.
One woman brought her youngest child and her older sister with her. She cried that her husband "didn't want any more kids," and there wasn't any choice.
Another young girl about 14 years old sat in silence, looking uncertain about whether she was in a detention hall or an abortion clinic. Her parents didn't know she was there and she was afraid they'd find out. Her boyfriend had "knocked her up" and they had been "so careful".
Rose and Edward hadn't been so careful - failures in "coitus interruptus".
Some of the womem felt scared, afraid - but believed they deserved whatever misery they would feel. There would be no sympathy and no grieving. They were relinquishing some thing they should't have had - like a wart or a leg abcessed by a staph germ.
Rose heard her name called - it was finally her turn. The nurse led her around the corner to a room gleaming with silver instruments. Rose was about to learn about abortion - a "simple vacuum aspiration”, the nurse explained. “There might be a little pressure, a little bleeding afterwards.”
Sitting on the table, watching the stirrups and breathing in the antiseptic scent of the small. operating room, Rose was half-listening, looking around. Only one large lamp was pointed toward the end of the table. A stool was pushed up to the stirrups.
The nurse was still talking. It sounded like a dental extraction. "You might feel a pinch," the nurse cautioned when she left the room. "Please get undressed and put on the gown. The doctor will be in shortly."
The blue gown was folded neatly in a plastic bag, sanitized and ready-to-wear.
Rose was left alone with her thoughts. She didn't think being unwed meant she should have an abortion. And she didn't like society - or her relatives - telling her what to do.
"What happened to the girl who was in this room?" the nurse asked the receptionist. "I left her there about fifteen minutes ago and told her to get the gown on."
“Next”, she called out to the reception area.
Rose was gone - walking down Park Avenue, hailing a cab. There was a play on Broadway she wanted to see before the last bus left for upstate New York. She might not get to New York City again before she gave the baby away. She'd brought the copy of "Dubliners" that Edward gave her to read on the way home. Maybe she'd tell Edward that she finally finished the book.
###
Post-mortem: Rose hid her pregnancy so well that Edward accused her of lying about ever being pregnant the week she delivered. He never saw his daughter. He passed Rose on the street and walked by without a word. Rose didn’t know how to be an unwed mother and surrendered her baby about four months after she was born. She wept hysterically when she signed her baby away and tossed the crib out the same night, breaking it into pieces and throwing it down three flights of stairs. She broke out a bottle of bourbon and sobbed for hours. It was like a funeral without a body, sending her tiny baby into the world to be raised by “better” people, a couple who “deserved” a baby. Rose is still waiting to remember it was a mistake. Edward didn’t remember to quit smoking and died of lung cancer about a dozen years later. They never saw each other again.
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